How to Detect Cryptocurrency Mining Activity on Your Network

What is Cryptocurrency Mining?

Bitcoin or Cryptocurrency mining is the process by which Cryptocurrency transactions are verified and added to the public ledger, known as the block chain, and also the means through which new bitcoin are released. Anyone with access to the internet and suitable hardware can participate in mining.

The mining process involves compiling recent transactions into blocks and trying to solve a computationally difficult puzzle. The participant who first solves the puzzle gets to place the next block on the block chain and claim the rewards. The rewards, which incentivize mining, are both the transaction fees associated with the transactions compiled in the block as well as newly released bitcoin.

Cryptocurrency mining is painstaking, expensive, and only sporadically rewarding. Mining is competitive and today can only be done profitably with the latest ASICs. When using CPUs, GPUs, or even the older ASICs, the cost of energy consumption is greater than the revenue generated.

Away from using specialized hardware, the most common way to mine cryptocurrency on standard hardware is to install Crypto mining client software and leave it running in the background. Cyber criminals can also use your computer to mine Cryptocurrencies by hosting Cryptocurrency mining hijacker on websites. If you visit the site without adequate virus protection your browser and CPU will be hijacked by the website operators.

Recently a piece of Malware called PowerGhost Malware has been spreading across corporate networks infecting both servers and workstations to illegally mining the crypt-currency and Perform DDoS Attacks.

In this case, attackers using file-less malware techniques to maintain the persistence which is then used to bypass the antivirus detection and leverage the corporate vulnerabilities using known exploits such as Eternalblue.

PowerGhost is unique for two reasons: firstly, it focuses on attacking corporate networks and secondly, it is file-less. This permits the miner to be able to cling to the servers and workstations of victims without being noticed. PowerGhost’s reign of terror has just began, and so far, reports of attacks have been seen Turkey, India, Brazil, and Colombia.

What are the risks associated with Cryptocurrency Mining?

Only those with specialized, high-powered machinery are able to profitably extract bitcoins nowadays. While mining is still technically possible for anyone, those with under-powered setups will find more money is spent on electricity than is generated through mining. If you have clients on your network running crypto mining software then it is costing your business money.

Many cyber criminals now favor anonymous Cryptocurrencies, with Monero being the most prominent. Cryptocurrencies are popular as they are both secure, private and difficult to trace. Servers are often targeted and since many of them are not updated or patched on a regular basis, attackers have a bigger chance of success.

Recently more than 526,000 Windows hosts, mostly Windows servers, have been infected by a Monero miner known as Smominru, according to researchers at Proofpoint. It spreads using the EternalBlue exploit (CVE-2017-0144) which targeted the SMBv1 protocol.

Cryptocurrency mining malware like this covertly mines for coins using the victim’s GPU horsepower without them knowing about it. It has potential for longer-term gains. When a computer is infected many people will fail to notice fans spinning up, or computers under higher load or just plain old not responding. A lot of those people may just pass it off as “one of those things my computer does.”

How to detect Cryptocurrency mining activity on your network

When it comes to detecting Cryptocurrency mining, you need to be looking at multiple data sources.

DNS query logs can be very useful when it comes to detecting suspicious activity or for use in follow up forensics. Searching DNS queries for text strings like bitcoin or crypto can be used to identify clients running crypto mining software. You can get DNS query information from DNS server logs or if you monitor network traffic going to and from your DNS servers.

Intrusion detection software typically uses pattern matching techniques to spot suspicious activity on a network. Applications such as Snort can be used to detect Crypto mining activity. You just need to make sure you install a well maintained IDS signature set such as those provided by EmergingThreats.

Internet Relay Chat (IRC) is an application layer protocol that facilitates communication in the form of text. Some Crypto miners use IRC but can be detected if they try an use IRC on a nonstandard port, IRC typically uses TCP port 6667.

Using LANGuardian to detect Cryptocurrency mining activity

Our own LANGuardian product uses a combination of network traffic analysis and IDS to provide visibility, context and alerts as to what is happening on a network. The following set of screen shots show how LANGuardian can be used to detect Crypto mining activity on a network. The primary data source would be a SPAN or mirror port which is monitoring all traffic going to or from the Internet. It is also advisable to monitor network traffic going to and from your DNS servers as this can also be used to detect Crypto mining activity. The video below shows how to use LANGuardian to detect Cryptocurrency mining on a network.

The follow image shows the output of a LANGuardian Network Events report which shows Crypto mining activity. The first event is associated with a Windows based (W32) Crypto mining client. The second event is associated with a client visiting a compromised website that is hosting a Cryptocurrency mining hijacker. The third event in the report is reporting that something is using IRC on a non standard port. This may not be associated with Crypto mining but it is worth investigating.

The next image shows what IP addresses are associated with this activity. LANGuardian also includes an Active Directory module so you can drill-down to see what users are associated with this activity. In this example we can see that the Crypto mining is associated with a single client within the network and it is communicating with external systems hosted in the Netherlands and France.

Next we take a look at the DNS activity associated with this client. If we filter on any domains containing the word coin we find that this client is also looking up numerous Bitcoin related sites. You can configure alerts on LANGuardian if you want to be notified about this activity. Alerts can be delivered as an email or as SYSLOG which can be then used to block the client via a firewall or NAC device.

As I mentioned previously, you need to continuously monitor network traffic to have a reliable way to detect Crypto mining activity on your network. You can quickly get a data source in place by setting up a SPAN or mirror port to get a copy of all network traffic going to or from your Internet gateway. Once this is in place you can extend the monitoring to include traffic associated with your DNS servers. The video below goes through the process of getting network traffic monitoring in place.

How to monitor Internet traffic using a SPAN or mirror port

Find out if there is any Crypto mining activity on your network with LANGuardian. 30 day trial

Use the deep packet inspection engine of LANGuardian to report on Cryptocurrency mining use on your network. Real time and historical reports available. No need to install any agents or client software.

Captures web traffic via SPAN\Mirror port or TAP.

Integration with Active Directory so you can see who is doing what on your network.

Passive monitoring so no proxy, agents or client software required.

Supports monitoring of direct and proxy based web traffic.

Built in IDS based on Snort. IDS rule-sets are automatically updated hourly

GeoIP matching allows you to see the countries websites or clients are located in.

All analysis is done passively using network traffic analysis and you will see results within minutes.